7 days ago

7 days ago

7 days ago

1 week ago

The Big Lead scored an interview with Dick Vitale recently, and the elder statesman (he’s 70!) of college basketball announcers riffed on Calipari/Pitino, UNC/Duke and one-and-dones. Worth the few-minutes read, and we hope to meet him again next week in NYC.

Virginia’s Jamil Tucker is taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team to deal with some personal issues — he averaged 7/4 last year in a reserve forward role, and Northwestern star forward Kevin Coble injured his foot in practice and could possibly miss time because of it. It’s currently unclear the extent of the injury, but he will be examined Friday and a determination will be made at that time. This could be devastating for Northwestern’s high hopes for this season. Moving away from injuries, there were some more suspensions yesterday, including Charlotte PF Shamari Spears, who will miss the 49ers’ first game on Friday against UNC Asheville, and Hawaii’s Douglas Kurtz, whose heart of darkness begins the season with a six-game suspension for playing three games in a Brazilian professional league in 2007.

Things aren’t going very well for Tubby Smith at Minnesota lately. One of his prized recruits, Royce White, who was already suspended for a violation of team rules and has recently caused trouble (shoplifting and assault) at the Mall of America, is now under suspicion for the theft of a laptop computer. We’re not exactly experts in this sort of thing, but is it safe to say that White will be at a junior college very soon?